ID requests: Raising the bar − Proposition to require a list of wrong titles

Question

Proposition

Let's upgrade the minimal requirements of an ID request to add a list of at least 3 wrong titles and 1 search query. Without this list, the post would be closed for not showing enough effort on the poster's part.

Goals

1. Explain how users can search on their own, solving and preventing ID questions from being asked;
2. Improve the quality of IDs that have been asked;
3. Create more clear-cut rules for closing bad IDs. This will also reduce zombie ID count because of automatic deletion after 30 days.

I think we're having a problem where the [closed] notification doesn't explain how to fix a bad ID in a concrete, short and easily understandable way. It looks more like a bunch of guidelines (that's what it's actually called in the close plaque, btw), tips and tricks and general recommendations. And the reviewers basically have to use common sense to arbitrarily evaluate an ID's quality. That does not sound like good rules to me.

Instead of what we have now, I suggest we make my proposed rules the first thing we show to the users whose ID got closed, and then, as an addition, the guidelines as a self-help message.

How it works

The list of course can't be just Naruto, Bleach and Evangelion. It has to be relevant to the search query and the post's body.

Example: Anime about police who kill people who haven't done anything bad yet

I'm looking for this anime where police aims their pistols at people and the pistol tells them if it will kill the target or just neutralize. Sometimes the pistol doesn't shoot at all.

I have looked for "anime pistol police" and found out that it's not:

• Patlabor
• Dominion tank police
• A. D. Police
• Hellsing
• Psycho-Pass… − and the ID never got posted

These days ID requests are so lazy that you can find the answer by googling a few of the keywords in the question. What does that say about the poster? That they most likely didn't try googling. That is too lazy and should not be allowed.

If you see a list of wrong titles in an ID request, it becomes obvious that OP has made at least some effort. Of course if they meet just the minimum requirement, it makes them look bad, but still better than no effort at all.

Answer 1

This is more of a question than a yes/no:

At least 3 wrong titles and 1 search query.

How will this deal with low users with really dumb questions like

It's an anime about super powers

It's not Dragonball, One Piece, Naruto

I tried Google "anime super power"

or even worse:

An anime about girls having fun

• it's not naruto, pokemon, digimon
• I searched "girl anime" no results

Users never cease to surprise me with the ability to ask questions of impossibly low quality

Answer 2

When I first read the post, I was opposed to this, but as I thought about it more, it started to make sense to me. I still think banning id requests is the best way to go. I've never actually seen a "good" id request. The "best" ones are minimally acceptable questions. I can only imagine we still have them around out of a spirit of charity and goodwill, since almost no one thinks they're good questions and the numbers show they don't generally attract people who contribute positively to the site. But if everyone insists on keeping them, I think this is a good addition to our policy.

Here's what I like about this policy: the onus is on the questioner. All reviewers have to do is leave a comment with a link to the requirements, and vote to close. The questioner has to go out and do the work of searching Google and finding three shows that aren't the one they're looking for. This is in contrast to our former policy on image id requests, where reviewers had to prove that the question wasn't easily solvable by reverse image search. That policy was complex and made more work for reviewers because they had to go out and try to find the stupid picture, fail, then come back and fight with close voters to keep the question open. With this policy, reviewers can immediately see that a question fails the requirements, and they can vote to close.

I also like that this policy is very concrete in its requirements. It has obvious, actionable steps. Our other id request guidelines are vague, and it's too easy for people to go "Oh well, that's all I remember" and decide to ignore them because hey, you don't remember what you don't remember. There's no excuse for not doing a Google search on some of the keywords from your question, other than ignorance, which we will remedy.

Here's a problem I see with this policy: there are people on the site who don't care how bad the id requests are, they're still going to answer them. We've seen this with our cleanup of image-only id requests, and I've also seen it going on with regular id requests. It's going to totally undermine us if we have a policy of closing any id request that doesn't have a Google search with three failures, but half the questions that don't have those things get answers anyway because someone who doesn't know the policy or doesn't care sneaks in under the radar and answers it. Bans are useless against hit-and-run questioners, and we know most id requesters are hit-and-run.

Here's another problem I see with this policy: people are lazy, and a shocking number of them suck at using Google. So we're still going to be opening ourselves up to stuff like this:

hai im looking for htis asdjime where peepz ahd liek special powurz and stuffs...i did a google srecha for "anime liek speciall powerza¹ and it sed one piece nruto fma but none of this is it cn u help ?? btw ther wher these drgon ballz in the sohw dunno if tht helpz?

Then we have to argue about whether the question deserves to remain open because they did, despite their total ineptitude, have a Google search with three shows in it. While we're arguing, someone else is going to show up and say "It's Dragon Ball Z" and the question will get answered anyway (see problem 1). Then people will keep coming and posting their lazy id requests with awful Google searches that turn up three obvious failures, because they've seen that other people get answers doing it.

However, overall, I have to say this is an improvement over the current situation. It has some hope of raising question quality, and it at least makes things easier on reviewers trying to decide if a question should remain open.

---

[1]: I actually did do a Google search on "anime liek speciall powerza", and Google knew what I meant. Google is amazing.

Answer 3

It looks like a great idea as it will improve the quality of the ID-request which is a great debate. What's more, the thing about SE is showing that you actually took the time of searching, thinking. A question in SE should not be something that people "throw on our face" by thinking "we will do the work for them". Therefore, forcing to show a minimal effort of research sounds great to my ears.

As an example (even though we obviously can't compare them as the goal is not the same), Stack Overflow always ask for one who asked a question to prove that the question has research background. I think bringing this spirit in identification-request could be a clear improvement.

Closing the question as "contains too little details to be answered " sounds logic as the author provides too few elements showing actual interest and research work in the question.

Better identification-request questions are better.